STAMFORD — Hours after employees at The Smith House cried foul over their union’s decision to nix a deal that could have saved their jobs, the company looking to buy the nursing home said the union’s Hartford leaders had begun negotiating with it.

Earlier Thursday the city said it had no choice but to move forward with plans to close the nursing home, given that the Hartford representatives of Service Employees International Union, District 1199 New England had denied an offer to buy the home from a private company.

The local members of the union, though said they had not been informed of an offer to buy the home, and began circulating a petition midday Thursday demanding “full disclosure of all variation of newly proposed contract terms” from their union.

The owner of the company that offered to buy Smith House told The Advocate Thursday evening that his company was in active negotiations with the union leaders in Hartford.

“We’re still actively trying to negotiate with 1199 on something to present to the members,” said Charles-Edouard Gros, chief executive officer for New York-based Center Management Group, which on Monday had reached a tentative deal with the city to take over Smith House.

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A public hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday at The Smith House. The hearing is one step of the legal process the state requires to close a nursing home. The city expects a large crowd at the hearing. To accommodate all the people the city plans to videotape the proceedings and broadcast them in several rooms throughout the facility. The home is located at 88 Rock Rimmon Road.

“If we’re able to come to acceptable terms that will keep Smith House open,” Gros said.

Although local members of SEIU 1199 said they knew nothing about a proposal from the company, both the city and Center Management Group said they had kept the union’s Hartford leadership involved in the discussions from the beginning, and had presented the city’s proposed agreement with the company to them Monday. By that evening, the deal was effectively dead after the union turned it down.

At an emergency meeting of The Smith House board of directors Thursday morning, Mayor David Martin informed the members that the city had filed formal papers with the state to close the nursing home on Tuesday morning. Because the nursing home’s staff would be employed by Center Management Group if the deal went forward, and they would not have jobs if the home closed, the union would have to negotiate with the buyer, not the city.

Gros said he expected that negotiations would continue well into Thursday evening.

Jennifer Schneider, a spokesperson for SEIU 1199, New England, said only that there was no “complete proposal” as of early Thursday evening, but that the Hartford leadership would meet with its local members Friday.

“We are meeting with our members tomorrow to discuss the details we have received thus far,” she wrote in an email.

On Wednesday, Schneider told The Advocate that employees at The Smith House nursing home that the proposed deal would “taken away” their pensions, and that there would be other compensation cuts. Martin told board members Thursday that this was untrue.

They’ll get their pensions whether the nursing home closes or is sold, Martin stated. “People can say what they want. That doesn’t make it true,” he said.

Martin said that because of an unrelated dispute the union has with the city, his administration isn’t allowed to talk to the local members, much less inform them of the deal to sell the home and its terms.

For now, the future of the home remains in flux, as it has since September when Martin floated the idea of bringing in an independent operator to run it.

Martin and his Director of Administration, Michael Handler, both stressed repeatedly Thursday morning that they did not want to hold out false hope to residents and their families, and had strived to present a consistent message, but that has proved difficult. The city has met five times with the residents and their families, they said, repeating their explanation that the city can’t afford to continue losing millions of dollars running the nursing home. They had hoped to present the Center Management deal at Friday’s public hearing required by the state to close a nursing home.

There are 88 residents still residing in the 128-bed facility. As more residents move to other homes though and the revenue stream shrinks, Smith House becomes less and less attractive to a buyer. Center Management Group wanted to put at least several million dollars into upgrading the home, and possibly expand it to include assisted living, to attract more private insurance residents, who pay more than residents who have Medicare or Medicaid.

The city would much rather sell the home than close it, Martin’s Director of Administration, Michael Handler, said at the board meeting.

Gros said he will try to make a deal work. “We really believe in Smith House,” he said. “We believe the facility should be kept open.”

Should the union reach an agreement with Center Management Group, Martin said, any Smith House residents who have already moved out following the announcement that the home was closing, would be able to return, or at least be at the top of a waiting list.

Martin said the city had been approached by six other buyers who were interested in the real estate. Located in verdant North Stamford, the land would be valuable to developers. Martin said repeatedly that he wants the best thing for the residents of Smith House, and would not entertain offers from "land flippers,“ as he called them. The city had tried to find a buyer, but the companies it contacted “laughed" at the idea. Center Management Group owns nursing homes in New York and New Jersey, and has been increasing its holdings recently. The company wants to have a presence in Fairfield County, the city said.

Also at Thursday’s board meeting, despite the grim tenor of the morning, the outgoing executive director of the nursing home, Bob Mislow, was honored for his work. He notified the city of his departure months ago, and Friday is his last day.